Do you want my money or not?!

from Sins Forums

I thought today I might finally buy SoaSE. Having already bought a previous stardock game (galciv2+expansions) I figured it would be fairly straightforward. I load up impulse, go to the store and click to buy SoaSE. It gives the price, along with a guide for the currency converted amount, and gives the payment options. I click to pay with paypal, login, and it takes me to a summary screen. Several things instantly make the alarm bells start ringing for me. Firstly, the price has doubled from what it said just a screen ago. It seems to have somehow kept my galciv2 expansion order in the basket for a year or so (I'd ordered the expansions before impulse even came out!), so I remove this and the price comes back to normal. This isn't the only problem though - it's also listing my postage address (I thought I was buying a digital copy). Also, the postal address and billing address given are my old address. I check paypal in case I forgot to update it but it's giving my new address. I then try to change the addresses on impulse to the correct one, and it seems to let me change it - I click continue, and it's back to paypal login screen, and then back to the old addresses. Couple this with about 10 new blank web pages opening up (in internet explorer), and my confidence in the impulse store is sorely shaken. As if that wasn't enough, when I click on the cancel button at the bottom of the page, it comes up with a message saying that the order should have been placed but a problem occurred and I should contact sales support if I don't receive the reg key within 30 mins. I'm hoping this is just a general page that is used rather than specically arising from my situation, although it's hardly comforting to click to cancel an order (before going past the checkout confirmation page) and being told you might have been billed for it.

 

So I've decided to go with the demo for now and maybe look at alternative ways of purchasing the game when I next feel up to it. I certainly didn't expect to be given this much trouble when trying to purchase the game though - has anyone else had similar problems, and if so is there a simple fix (other than buying a hard copy from a store)?

technical
3,418 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

My Impulse experience was flawless. I click what I want, I checkout(My prices are correct), the game(s) download at ridiculously fast speeds and I am playing in under 12 minutes.

 

That was using a CC not Paypal so I will be curious and try that next time I buy something.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

support@stardock.com

They will help you.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Looks like it was an issue with impulse rather than paypal. I tried again, but this time using the browser (i.e. purchasing it via the site, rather than through impulse+it's browser). No annoying new blank windows appeared. The postage address appeared as before, but at least this time both the postage address and the billing address were the correct ones, and no additional surprise item appeared on the checkout screen.

Of course the problems returned when I then loaded impulse to download the game - Blacked out buttons (I had to guess which one was ok and which would be cancel) along with numerous crashes while downloading (fortunately it paused the download and continued it when I restarted impulse, rather than having to restart) and I'm fairly unimpressed with impulse so far. The one plus point is it handled the email change without any issues - when doing it through the webpage it used my paypal email address, which is different to my impulse one. However I was able to use the serial no on impulse+get it registered anyway.